question Afternic payment failure

[amandadisanayaka]

Someone bought my domain which I bought from godaddy and listed on afternic via fast transfer on 16th June 2022. Domain got transferred automatically on 21st June 2022. Payout date was scheduled for 24th June 2022. But still I have not received the payout. I chose ACH transfer option. Usually I get the payment exactly on the scheduled date. I was keeping this domain for almost 8 months Please help me to sort this out. @Joe Styler

 

[Bannen]

The issue with afternic is that, they don't respond to our emails. I have been trying to reach them to see what's going on but still no response. That's why I started this discussion to get some support from the community.

Do you have an actual account with Afternic? If you do, then your transaction is assigned a specific agent who sees it through to the end. You just click on the domain that is being sold - it will show to the right side of your dashboard - and you'll see a link to send a message to the agent. Response times vary; I've had agents who always get back to me within an hour (during work hours), and I've had agents who take 2 or 3 days to respond to each message.

If you do not have an agent at Afternic, and you are doing this transaction (from your end) only through Godaddy and are using Godaddy's agent to communicate with Afternic... I cannot advise, as I have never done that

Also, you can 'kind of ignore' the Afternic notifications. They are often premature. For example, I commonly receive a 'transfer to buyer is complete' notification the moment Afternic starts their transfer to the buyer... and in fact they have only started the transfer, and sometimes the transfer takes another few days even after I've received the 'transfer complete' notification. Same goes with the payout; I've sometimes received the 'payout is scheduled' notification; that just means the transaction agent has sent you the 'payout is scheduled' notification; they often send that notification also, when the transfer is started or underway, because they predict when the transfer will complete. Then payout is usually scheduled for within 3 days. But if the buyer delays the finalization of the transfer... you can see the payout date arrive in 3 days... and go by... and a few days later you're still waiting... and you message the Afternic agent and they say "We're still trying to get the buyer to complete the transfer". Ha ha.

As I said, almost all my transactions with Afternic are pretty fast, within 1 - 4 days; but a small percentage of them do have considerable delays. Each transaction goes through multiple people at multiple departments, and inter-department actions sometimes have delays for all kinds of reasons, and buyers delay things for their own reasons too. If there's a big delay: it's *usually* (usually but not always) due to the buyer not completing some step along the way yet. Which screws up the timing on the notifications Afternic sometimes prematurely sends you. Which makes you feel like something's wrong. When it's not wrong, just delayed.

 

[amandadisanayaka]

Do you have an actual account with Afternic? If you do, then your transaction is assigned a specific agent who sees it through to the end. You just click on the domain that is being sold - it will show to the right side of your dashboard - and you'll see a link to send a message to the agent. Response times vary; I've had agents who always get back to me within an hour (during work hours), and I've had agents who take 2 or 3 days to respond to each message.

If you do not have an agent at Afternic, and you are doing this transaction (from your end) only through Godaddy and are using Godaddy's agent to communicate with Afternic... I cannot advise, as I have never done that

Also, you can 'kind of ignore' the Afternic notifications. They are often premature. For example, I commonly receive a 'transfer to buyer is complete' notification the moment Afternic starts their transfer to the buyer... and in fact they have only started the transfer, and sometimes the transfer takes another few days even after I've received the 'transfer complete' notification. Same goes with the payout; I've sometimes received the 'payout is scheduled' notification; that just means the transaction agent has sent you the 'payout is scheduled' notification; they often send that notification also, when the transfer is started or underway, because they predict when the transfer will complete. Then payout is usually scheduled for within 3 days. But if the buyer delays the finalization of the transfer... you can see the payout date arrive in 3 days... and go by... and a few days later you're still waiting... and you message the Afternic agent and they say "We're still trying to get the buyer to complete the transfer". Ha ha.

As I said, almost all my transactions with Afternic are pretty fast, within 1 - 4 days; but a small percentage of them do have considerable delays. Each transaction goes through multiple people at multiple departments, and inter-department actions sometimes have delays for all kinds of reasons, and buyers delay things for their own reasons too. If there's a big delay: it's *usually* (usually but not always) due to the buyer not completing some step along the way yet. Which screws up the timing on the notifications Afternic sometimes prematurely sends you. Which makes you feel like something's wrong. When it's not wrong, just delayed.

Thank you so much for this valuable information. I worked with godaddy but I have an afternic account which I can login to via godaddy. There's an option to message the agent. I will try that out and see what's going on.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

I have emailed afternic. There's no specific agent. I worked with godaddy + afternic. But still there's no response from them. Do they delay or cancel scheduled payouts like this? Will I lose both my domain and money by working with afternic? @Joe Styler @AbdulBasit.com

Check this out https://www.abdulbasit.com/domaining/reasons-why-afternic-delays-in-releasing-payment which may clarify your doubts.

 

[decades80]

I hope that Joe Styler @Joe Styler tries to do something in the near future. Brandable places like BB and SH, issue usually the next day payment and also Uni is quite good, but reading all this horrible stories with weeks in delay on GD and Afternic is not a good company image and the people will leave.
I dont use Dan, but Dan is also known of doing payments the next business day, now when Godaddy took it over, the people are scared this will change suddenly. Its really a good practice to issue payments asap and on time especially for freelance domainers and micro-companies they operate.

 

[amandadisanayaka]

I hope that Joe Styler @Joe Styler tries to do something in the near future. Brandable places like BB and SH, issue usually the next day payment and also Uni is quite good, but reading all this horrible stories with weeks in delay on GD and Afternic is not a good company image and the people will leave.
I dont use Dan, but Dan is also known of doing payments the next business day, now when Godaddy took it over, the people are scared this will change suddenly. Its really a good practice to issue payments asap and on time especially for freelance domainers and micro-companies they operate.

Yes why can't they issue the payouts like other when they have already got the domain away from our account? We have to wait weeks to get the payout even after getting our domains removed from the account. Who will be held responsible if we don't get the payouts and also if we lose the domain? Seems like there are many people out there who haven't received payout for months. But here in my case my domain got transferred automatically without any of my knowledge via afternic fast transfer option. Any now I don't have my domain and as well as the payout.

 

[LondonWebSiteDesign]

Today finally I got my payment from Afternic!

 

[amandadisanayaka]

Today finally I got my payment from Afternic!

Congrats bro. Happy things got worked out for you. By the way what payment method did you use? Is it ACH or wire transfer or some other method? Because I used ACH method. I contacted afternic and they said the payout was issued after checking with their accounting department. Then again they told me they had an issue from their end and now they have fixed it and my payout will be issued within 2 business days.

 

[LondonWebSiteDesign]

Congrats bro. Happy things got worked out for you. By the way what payment method did you use? Is it ACH or wire transfer or some other method? Because I used ACH method. I contacted afternic and they said the payout was issued after checking with their accounting department. Then again they told me they had an issue from their end and now they have fixed it and my payout will be issued within 2 business days.

My payment method was Paypal. Last night i got an email about payment and today I got it!

 

[amandadisanayaka]

My payment method was Paypal. Last night i got an email about payment and today I got it!

Nice bro. Thanks for the reply. Happy for you

 

[SuperDudePro]

Afternic has been getting faster and faster on payouts for me. It's been a marked improvement over a year ago. The same is true for me on how fast they answer my emails or how quickly they delete the old listing when I try to add a domain that is already there.

I understand that it is frustrating when it isn't working well. But they are somewhat different in that AN doesn't always get the payment directly. If it is bought through the fast transfer network, they are waiting for the transaction to get to them before they release it. If it doesn't go through for some reason, they would just move the domain back into your account. They are doing their own escrow, so they aren't giving the domain to the buyer, they are holding it in their own account to verify they can transfer it. Then when the payment makes it, they can release both domain and payment.

Sedo is sometimes slow on payouts for me for the same reason. If it comes through their network, they have extra verification steps.

Just my experience with AN. For me, their vast network makes any inconvenience worth it, a large majority of my sales come through them.

 

[topdom]

One day they can buy a million dollar domain from you, but not move it to "buyer"'s account, and not pay you.
Can this happen: according to current rules, yes.

The same can happen at escrow.com, the buyer can just fail to say "got it".
At sedo, sedo sometimes waits until the buyer confirms transfer, but if he doesn't in 1 week, then sedo assumes transfer is complete, and sends payment... Also if you push domain to them, they can pay the next day.
Dan is the best in transfer part, but overall it is the worst (last 9 months), because parking doesn't work, meaning, no sale to endusers possible.

 

[Joe Styler]

Afternic is working on some workflow updates to speed payments up a bit. In the meantime if you contact [email protected] they can help look into your specific domain. Most times there is an issue with the payee that is setup and going in and making sure it is up to date and re-saving the info will help.

 

[amandadisanayaka]

Afternic has been getting faster and faster on payouts for me. It's been a marked improvement over a year ago. The same is true for me on how fast they answer my emails or how quickly they delete the old listing when I try to add a domain that is already there.

I understand that it is frustrating when it isn't working well. But they are somewhat different in that AN doesn't always get the payment directly. If it is bought through the fast transfer network, they are waiting for the transaction to get to them before they release it. If it doesn't go through for some reason, they would just move the domain back into your account. They are doing their own escrow, so they aren't giving the domain to the buyer, they are holding it in their own account to verify they can transfer it. Then when the payment makes it, they can release both domain and payment.

Sedo is sometimes slow on payouts for me for the same reason. If it comes through their network, they have extra verification steps.

Just my experience with AN. For me, their vast network makes any inconvenience worth it, a large majority of my sales come through them.

Thank you for the information

 

[amandadisanayaka]

One day they can buy a million dollar domain from you, but not move it to "buyer"'s account, and not pay you.
Can this happen: according to current rules, yes.

The same can happen at escrow.com, the buyer can just fail to say "got it".
At sedo, sedo sometimes waits until the buyer confirms transfer, but if he doesn't in 1 week, then sedo assumes transfer is complete, and sends payment... Also if you push domain to them, they can pay the next day.
Dan is the best in transfer part, but overall it is the worst (last 9 months), because parking doesn't work, meaning, no sale to endusers possible.

Got it. Thanks

 

[amandadisanayaka]

Afternic is working on some workflow updates to speed payments up a bit. In the meantime if you contact they can help look into your specific domain. Most times there is an issue with the payee that is setup and going in and making sure it is up to date and re-saving the info will help.

My payee details are up to date. I tried resaving but the field were uneditable. So I tried adding another bank account. And now it's marked as the main payment method. Now field in both the payment methods are editable. I have no idea what happened in the first place. I did email them. This was their response. By the way do you know how fast it will be in the future after those updates you mentioned @Joe Styler ? Just a rough idea will help the community a lot when they face issues like mine

Reply 1:-

Thank you for contacting Afternic Support.

We understand that you would like an update on the payout for the domain '(Domain Name)' that you have sold on Afternic.

We have reached out to our accounting department for an update. Please, allow them some time to respond. We will update you as soon as we have more information.

Let us know if you need further assistance or if you have any additional questions in the meantime.

Regards,

Ivo K.
Afternic Support

Reply 2:-

Hello Amanda,

Thank you for reaching back.

We can confirm that the payment for the sale of '(Domain Name)' has been sent to you. You should receive the funds in a few business days depending on your payment processor.

Reply 3:-

Thank you for reaching back and we apologize for the confusion.

I can confirm that your payout has not yet been sent to you.
Looks like there was an issue on our end that has since been fixed (within the last 24h) so another attempt to send you the funds would be made within the next 2 business days.
You would receive an email notification when that happens.

Let us know if we can assist you further.

Regards,
Zdravko

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So hopefully if I get the payment within 2 business days it's gonna be fine.

 

[amandadisanayaka]

Update**

Just received the payout to my bank account. Thank you everyone who helped me on this matter. Really appreciate for sharing all those information with the community

 

[ET76]

Happy to hear that Amanda, congrats with your sale!

 

[Joe Styler]

Update**

Just received the payout to my bank account. Thank you everyone who helped me on this matter. Really appreciate for sharing all those information with the community

Glad to hear you got paid. Typically if you update your payee it will trigger another payment attempt which is done once a day automatically. Most of the time a payment delay is due to a problem with the payment method, something is missing, the threshold is set wrong, or something like that. If you go and make sure it is correct it will automatically trigger the system to take another look and attempt payment.
Also if you email [email protected] they will normally respond pretty quickly. If you contact ta at afternic the turn around time is much slower.

 

[Edukar]

Hi, I am Happy for Amanda.
I have a question for @Joe Styler. Due to the political situation, Paypal refused to work with the residents of my country. ACH doesn't work either. The only withdrawal method is a Payoneer. I was forced to delete several hundred domains from Afternic, like most of my compatriots. I think that Afternic has lost several tens of thousands of domains. By the way, there is a withdrawal of funds to the Payoneer at the SH. I would be grateful if the Afternic team would consider working with Payoneer.
And I'll Be Back (c)
And other too,

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Hi, I am Happy for Amanda.
I have a question for @Joe Styler. Due to the political situation, Paypal refused to work with the residents of my country. ACH doesn't work either. The only withdrawal method is a Payoneer. I was forced to delete several hundred domains from Afternic, like most of my compatriots. I think that Afternic has lost several tens of thousands of domains. By the way, there is a withdrawal of funds to the Payoneer at the SH. I would be grateful if the Afternic team would consider working with Payoneer.
And I'll Be Back (c)
And other too,

It will be great if Afternic issues payouts to Payoneer.